Friday, July 13, 2012

Statists (both Conservative and Leftist) fallaciously believe that the role of the US President is to "govern". To "get things done". They are wrong, because no president can do that. All that a president can do is "do no harm". He can use the power of veto to reduce the Congress's encroachments on Americans' liberties. The best presidents in the US history have done exactly that.

But Obama has even retreated from (pretending to occupy) those lines. Now he has admitted that he got the job description wrong. The purpose of the president is not to get "things done". It's to bullshit the American public into a sense of national unity:

"When I think about what we've done well and what we haven't done well," the president told CBS television in an interview, "the mistake of my first term — couple of years — was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right.

"And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times ..."

So, keeping in mind that the government that governs least governs best (simply because everything that the government does will be harmful a priori), if all that Obama does in his second term is "tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism" (I guess someone watched The King's Speech), he will join the ranks of the best American presidents.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's all that he will do...

(By the way, if you were wondering why I haven't been posting for a while, it's because, b"H, I had a baby girl born on Shabbos, Gimmel Tammuz. Now that the baby is toilet trained, walking, and talking, I have more free time on my hands and will try to start posting again...)